Joakim Noah will play fewer minutes for Bulls next season

Posted by
Inside Hoops

Jul
20

Joakim Noah will continue to be a focal point for the Chicago Bulls but he will not be logging as many minutes as he did last season, coach Tom Thibodeau said Thursday.

“Jo’s minutes will come down,” Thibodeau said during the Las Vegas Summer League. “We got strung out there because Kirk [Hinrich] got hurt. We had to really run our offense through Jo. But the second half of the season we got his minutes down which was probably a good number for him. Luol [Deng] may come down a couple minutes but when you look at small forwards in this league, they all play those type of minutes.

“For us how he and our team matches up with LeBron [James] with Paul George and Kevin Durant, those guys are all in the 37-38 minute area. But I do feel really good about our depth so I think that’s going to be a big plus. Our bench is going to be one of our strengths next season. We’re going to look to take advantage of that.”